With Wall Street acting more like a rotary — take a walk down Main Street

Good early pre-opening bell Monday morning to everyone. I hope you had a phenomenal weekend of surfing, swimming, boating, bbq’ing, visiting artist studios, dancing by the ocean to a live band playing classics from the ’40s and ’50s and just enjoying the beautiful weather we’ve been having with family and friends — I know I did — I even bumped into Frank Sinatra, Jr. — but enough about that.

No crystal ball is needed to predict that most business news this week is going to be focused on earnings reports coming from Google, IBM, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc.

Although I will be paying attention to Goldman, which has been on my DD list for a while, I won’t be trying to predict what the reports are going to say — or how the street is going to react.

That’s a sucker’s bet.

Nobody knows.

We saw that last week.

A large company can come out with better than expected earnings and the street’s reaction can be a puny “eh” response.

I always like to fly a bit under the radar screen with names I like that the street isn’t obsessing over.

So in addition to my DD list regulars of McDonald’s, Walmart, Pepsi, etc. I’m also doing some DD on the Dollar stores and TJ Max.

Remember, there are two different streets you need to keep an eye open for — Wall Street and Main Street.

So while Wall Street has been acting more like a rotary — turn your attention to what’s going on down on Main Street and what places people aren’t just browsing in, but are actually carrying big bags out of.

While I’m lounging on the beach with friends, I always ask people where they bought this or that, and I’m hearing that a lot of people who used to go to the pricier mall stores have been frequenting the TJ Max’s and Marshall’s of the world — and are planning to make those type of places where they intend to bring their kiddies for back to school shopping.

I’ve also been hearing that people have been driving a few miles out of their way to visit Dollar stores, and are beginning to rave about the savings they’ve made with everything from paper towels to sunglasses — and these are the same people who thought nothing last year of buying two cups of Starbucks a day.

Heck, I even saw a lot more families packing their own peanut butter sandwiches at the beach instead of heading for the concession stands, which just might make me look at a few peanut butter companies, wondering if that just might play into people packing those same peanut butter sandwiches when their kids head back to school.

I’ll probably look at Campbell’s for the same reason.

So, newbies, that’s the type of buzz you should be looking for from Main Street to find names to put on your own DD list to see if the numbers match the buzz.

And always heed the usual disclaimer: Don’t base any of your investment decisions on anything you read here — do your own due diligence — or at least enough research to pick the right professional to do it for you.